In Part 1 - We discuss the IPL and the Sri Lankan players participation in it and the the role of the Sri Lankan Cricket board in all the controvery that has come with it. (Sorry about the up and down audio on this one!)

Comments

Hey Damith good going once again other than the very last "shout" ; sounded bit out of character too.. :) Two things ; first since our current bowling attack is "pathetic" is it a possibility that you guys could review some of the players in first class circuit/bench who has the potential to step up. and two re the IPL is it a possibility that the whole "situation" is due to problems with both parties; SLC and the players (and their agents).

Slion> Ya I think it was around 2am when I added that last bit in :) Sorry!

re:Bowling - yes we hope to cover domestic cricket at a later stage. Trying to get a good guest for that one at the moment. With regards to the bowling though, don't think we need to make any drammatic changes. Once Wele comes back in and Eranga hopefully coming in we have an OK attack. Don't think we should ditch Lakmal and Prasad also, they just need to improve. We might need a better bowling coach to be honest. Vaas might be ideal.

re: What I've been disappointed is the local media witch hunt with players , IPL and money debate. It's quite appaling the levels the media has gone to to make paint the players in a bad light while completely ignoring the root of the issue which is how the board has handled most of these issues. Which is what me and Andrew tried to highlight and hopefully got across.

One thing I will say though is cuz of the media campaign, I see that the SL team and some of its players have started to lose a lot of fans. And I feel like they are willing to believe anything the media cooks up without trying to have some perspective.

Take the Malinga not signinig the new contract thing. Malinga is a very valuable player to SL and yet we are offering him a salaray package that a Tier 3 contracted player gets? Malinga is one of the biggest draw cards in the WORLD. And we treat him so poorly and so callously. Just like we did when the whole retirement from test cricket issue came around.

I find it amazing that people are still up in arms about Malinga not playing test cricket. Him not playing test cricket is the right thing cuz his injury is such that it will never get better with rest of rehab or anything lke that. It just gets worse the more he plays. Him retirning from test cricket was the right thing to pro long his career and its beneficial to SL that he still is able to turn out to for the ODIs and 2020.

Simsek wrote to the board to tell them that he needs to play less cricket. Obviously the most strain on Malinga will be via test cricket. From which he retired. I have no quarrels with that.

I think the fact that the IPL as involved was unfortunate for him cuz since then he's been labeled as picking that over country.

Having said that, I think if Malinga is no longer available for test cricket he should be paid less than people who play all 3 formats. Eg.It's not like Thilan etc are not available, they are just not picked.

But its quite appaling if Malinga is getting 40k when a tier 3 player also gets 40k. Malinga is a supreme bowler - albeit out of form a little in international cricket - and deserves a fair pay.

It's basically saying, an itern gets the same as manager. In what world is that fair?

End of the day, people will always take side, the fan who thinks cricketer should always pick country over money no matter what and others who try try to think of it from the players pt of a little, and other who just wont care.

One thing I can say though is, Malinga is losing a lot of fans over this and I think he needs to realise that, he might be in the right but our Media is basically on a witch hunt to paint players badly in this IPL debate.

I saw Rex Clementines fb status few days ago when he was 'happy' that Malinga got injured in the IPL, cuz he apparently hates it. Sad to say that there are fans who feel the same way these days.

re:Agents - I dunno why so many people have issues with player agents. Maybe because its a new concept in SL and most of the old era did not have any. Again, the media is the one who keeps blowing up the agent issue out of proportion for no reason at all. It started with that 2009 Eng tour which got cancelled. Contracts were signed with the IPL and player are suddenly to ditch that to please Ranatunga who only did it to go againt the BCCI - which he hates. Obviously the agents are gonna be involved in looking after the players best interest - that is their job.